2008 Melodrama

The Butte Opera House has been the home of the renewed tradition of Classic Cripple Creek Melodrama. With the first Cripple Creek Player production in 2000 on the new stage of the Butte, the 60-year tradition of melodrama was re-established.

The Butte Opera House will continue the town's melodrama tradition, which dates to 1946 and draws about 10,000 patrons each summer.

Classic Cripple Creek melodrama will take the stage again this summer at the Butte Theater.

This year’s show, An Arrant Knave, will open June 6 and run through July.

The story is set in a Medieval forest.  The Duke who rules the land is a harsh and evil man who has been ruling with an iron fist for over 15 years, after arranging to have his older brother (who was the ruler) killed. He also systematically killed the older Duke’s sons, who would have been the rightful heirs. 

The show starts in the cabin of a woodsman, where the woodsman’s daughter is speaking with Hugo (one of the employees of the woodsman, who we later discover is a surviving son of the older Duke and true heir).  We learn that Hugo loves the woodsman’s daughter and that the woodsman’s son is in love with and secretly seeing a beautiful girl that is cloistered away in the monastery. The beautiful girl turns out to be Hugo’s long lost sister whom the younger Duke plans to marry to secure his Dukedom. 

Enter Chiqui, played by veteran actor Mel Moser, the somewhat bumbling Captain of the Guard with a heart of gold in search of a enemy of the realm.  The play moves to the monastery, where the young Duke is preparing to force Hugo’s sister in marriage against her will. Along comes the woodsman’s daughter and switches places with Hugo’s sister and coaxes Chiqui to help Hugo’s sister to escape into the forest. 

Once in the forest, in order to disguise his identity (as he is now an enemy of the young Duke) Chiqui is convinced to dress up like a woman.  As the plot unravels, it is Chiqui who cons the young Duke, inadvertently reveals the identity of Hugo as the rightful heir and reunites Hugo and his sister. This allows Hugo to assume lordship and marry his love (the courageous daughter of the woodsman) while Hugo’s sister is betrothed to her love (the woodsman’s son).  There is also a sub-plot of the older Duke’s hidden treasure.

The Butte Opera House & Thin Air Theatre are members of CrippleCreekPackages.com...

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Reservations not required but recommended for the 2007 season, which starts in June.